QUIZ: Name the active homer leader within each of the six divisions (answer below).

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The “competitive balance” issue commissioner Bud Selig has promised repeatedly to address is filled with claims that sound good in beating up players and big-market clubs while defending the small-market teams. However, almost all claims, when the curtain is pulled away, turn out to be bogus.

Just remember when Selig uses the euphemism “competitive balance” what it really translates to is his desire – in behalf of ownership – to bring cost certainty to payrolls and raise franchise values for his rich friends.

Let us take one of the “competitive balance” issues for example. How many times have you heard free agency is a vehicle to allow the rich to get richer? Sounds right. But let’s pull away the curtain.

Each year the Elias Sports Bureau ranks players to determine the compensation a team will get for losing a free agent. The rankings are based on stats from a two-season period so the current survey covers 1999-2000 and 275 players fall into the elite Type-A category.

Of those, 21 are free agents that have signed with a new team this offseason. Thirteen signed with a team that had a worse regular-season record than the one from which they had left. That means 61.9 percent – a majority George W. Bush could only dream about – switched from a better to worse record, which in theory should greatly help “competitive balance.”

Perhaps more meaningful is eight went from a team that made the 2000 playoffs to a team that did not.

Of the eight that joined better teams, just three went to 2000 playoff clubs and two of those went from one playoff team to another: Kevin Appier (A’s to Mets) and Jeff Nelson (Yankees to Mariners). Just one of the overall 21 went from a non-playoff team to a playoff team: Mike Mussina (Orioles to the Yankees).

So, rather than the rich getting richer, in nearly every case, free agency helped spread talent. That sounds like a boon for “competitive balance.”

As for Selig’s “competitive balance” draft plan, it is ridiculous. Under the guidelines, the eight teams with the best three-year records would protect 25 players from their system and lose a non-protected player each to the eight teams with the worst three-year records.

This, of course, is being done for “competitive balance,” to help the small-market teams. But there is a strong chance, that the small-market A’s and Reds would be among the best three-year teams for 1999-2001 and could be subject to lose a player to such clubs as the Tribune-owned Cubs, the Disney-owned Angels, the constantly sold-out Orioles plus Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, which are opening stadiums this season.

Sounds like just a brilliant idea to help the small markets. . . .

But the good thing is the commissioner has such thick skin. To prove it, he reacted to negative comments about the “competitive balance” draft made by such people as Met co-owner Nelson Doubleday by telling those at a recent owners meeting to spread the word that any club official who publicly comments on any of his new proposals, which also includes a world-wide draft, will be fined $1 million.

Perhaps, Selig can take any fine money and give it to the small-market teams so they can do what they usually do with it, put it in their pockets rather than spend it on talent.

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Met players spoken to this week, all of whom have had contact with Steve Phillips, say they expect the GM to make a roster upgrade before the season. And the Mets do intend to consider Sammy Sosa if he becomes available from the Cubs in a trade, which is becoming more likely.

But one player they already have checked into and found – for now – is unavailable is Pittsburgh’s John VanderWal. But the lefty swinger could become available, strangely enough, because he lost his starting job when the Pirates signed former Met right fielder Derek Bell to a two-year contract.

For those who scoff, VanderWal hit 24 homers last year in 384 at-bats and had a .410 on-base percentage and a .563 slugging percentage. Other lefty outfield bats that could be had include Jeromy Burnitz, Ricky Ledee, Troy O’Leary and – despite the denials of Twin GM Terry Ryan – baseball officials think Matt Lawton could still be had.

The Yanks are pleased the Dodger payroll (by the Commissioner’s Office standards) projects to $115 million and that Boston is currently at around $109.6 million, both of which might exceed their own.

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Bret Saberhagen is psyched that after growing up in the Royal system together and reuniting in 1992 on an ill-fated Met team, he has the chance to pitch again with pal David Cone on the Red Sox in 2001.

“Maybe the third time will be a charm,” he said this week. But before his 37th birthday in April, Saberhagen said he will know if there will be anything charming about the upcoming season.

Saberhagen missed all of the 2000 season following yet another surgery to his right shoulder. He has been working four days a week on strengthening, but has yet to throw full out off a mound. If his arm still hurts in spring, “then it is not going to happen. This is my last shot.” . . .

It’s 10 p.m., and I still have post-election confusion. No, not about Bush-Gore, but about why Bruce Sutter still has not been voted into the Hall of Fame.